


The Day The Music Died

by Donatello7



Series: The Day the Music Died [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Conversion Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I fear this may be OOC, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Torture, WIP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donatello7/pseuds/Donatello7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter is kidnapped and tortured by Thanos, and the Ravagers rescue him. As he recovers, it becomes clear that he isn't the only one with demons.</p><p>Chapter 1 - When Thanos only kills his enemies, it is as close to mercy as he is capable.<br/>Chapter 2 - “I think you’ll find, Mister the Destroyer, that I am the one that makes the orders on this ship.”<br/>Chapter 3 - Yondu thinks that his crew are now responsible for a galaxy wide shortage in flannel pyjamas<br/>Chapter 4 - And Peter thinks he must still be dreaming, because Yondu never cries.<br/>Chapter 5 - In the Centaurian language, the same word is used for Captain as for Father<br/>Chapter 6 - "It’s all you ever think about. What can you do to be stronger? What can you do to get them to notice you? You try so hard but you’re still worthless."<br/>Chapter 7 - “What does Kra’gar’lan mean?”<br/>Chapter 8 - Kraglin wonders how soon it will be before he can throw himself off of another cliff.<br/>Chapter 9 - "Doors still going to be open for you to come back though, Quill, anytime you need it to be."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tommy Walker

**Author's Note:**

> This particular fic is a WIP that REFUSED to leave my head. It's experimental in style, so any constructive criticism welcome. I'm going to write as I go along, so comments WILL have an effect on future chapters.

He has been able to escape, in a fashion. Retreat into darkness and silence, a void where dreaming is easier. He spends most of his time living in his imagination, although to his surprise (at first) he doesn’t use this to be a rock star or some worshipped deity.

 

He spends time hanging out with the crew, just sitting at the galley table sharing stories, or working together on a heist. He and Gamora spend evenings laid on his bunk, listening to the Mix Tape, singing along. Gamora has a beautiful voice.

 

He is having trouble remembering what she looks like. He sees her bathed in light, like a Celestial or Asgardian Princess.

 

He forgot what he looked like a long time ago.

 

He can feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he can feel the cold floor against his bare skin. He doesn’t know how long he has been laying there, both asleep and awake, shivering. He doesn’t make a sound even when he feels the hands grab him, pulling him from the ground. He shuts down. There is no point in fighting, he learned that it just makes the pain worse, so now he just lets it happen. He lets them use him, while he retreats into dreams.

 

“Rocket, how many times have I told you not to leave explosive devices in the cockpit.”

“That’s not mine.”

“It is mine, Friend Quill. Our fur covered friend has been teaching me the finer techniques of construction. I have been practicing...”

“WITH EXPLOSIVES!”

“For all that bread and circuses baffle him, old Drax here is actually a really good student. Know how I can tell that?”

“My ship is still here?”

“Exactly.”

 

Explosives. Tearing something apart atom by atom while they are still alive, still screaming. And laughing the whole time. Then throwing them back together again, dropping them to the ground hard enough to break bone. Healing it. Breaking it. Burns. Cold. Cuts. Then, when bored, sitting back and watching the Chitauri given leave to play with the prisoner. Their new toy.

 

When Thanos only kills his enemies, it is as close to mercy as he is capable.

 

Something is different this time. He’s warm, wrapped in something soft, and he is moving, floating. He is being carried. No. Where are they taking him? He thinks he should struggle but he doesn’t even have the energy to lift his cheek from the rough leather material it is laid against. He can smell ship oil, alcohol, and centaurian soap. There’s something odd and familiar and safe about it, and he thinks he might still be dreaming.

 

Thanos grins, leaning forward. “You will be my message to Gamora.”

 

He flinches, and the rocking motion stops. He feels things shift, and a hard surface beneath his legs and backside. Cold air on his chest for a moment, then warm again as the blanket is pulled tighter around him, and a hand falls to each of his shoulders, before moving up to curl gently around his ears while, at the same time, something is pressed against his forehead. Another.

 

He screws his unseeing eyes shut. He doesn’t want them to take this from him too.

 

“Higher pitch.”

The yaka arrow twitches, sliding an inch along the table. Peter takes a deep breath, tries again.

And the arrow shoots into the wall.

“That’s my boy.” Yondu shouts, wrapping a hand around each of the 12 year old’s ears and placing their foreheads together. They stay that way for a moment before Yondu leans back. “Picked that up quicker than I ever did.” He roughs the boy’s hair, and then goes to retrieve the arrow.

And Peter feels like he is glowing.

 

An adult again, Peter feels the cold air brush his skin as he is stripped bare. Naked. Vulnerable. And then warm water against his feet, ankles, legs, hips. He is submersed quickly, up to his shoulders in hot but not burning, thick liquid. Bubbles. He can feel soap bubbles against his face. Covering and concealing as strong yet gentle hands begin the process of sponging down each arm, his shoulders, torso.

 

He focuses on the difference, the gentle, parental way that his top half is cleaned, each inch given abundance of attention and care, then a pause before is bottom half is administered to in a clinical, quick yet no less gentle fashion that communicates the same level of concern but also leaves no time for embarrassment.

 

He feels himself being lifted out of the tub and a large, thick towel wrapping him from knee to shoulder. Peter shakes with the feeling of it, the first gentle touch in so long. He is overwhelmed, done for. If he could see or hear himself (anything) he is sure he would see a naked, pathetic creature bawling on the ground.

 

Arms wrap around his shoulders, a hand splayed against his head and he is drawn against someone's chest. For a moment Peter thinks of the time he got his heart broken by some girl whose name he can’t even remember now. He got drunk and stoned in some backwater colony bar, and Yondu and Kraglin had to take turns sitting with him, holding him upright to make sure that he didn’t choke in his sleep. Strong arms, warm leather coats to rest his head against. Kraglin sang songs from the mixtape, having heard it enough times to have each lyric burned into his memory, and after a while Yondu gave up and joined in. Neither sang as well as Gamora, and to be fair Kraglin couldn’t really sing at all, but Yondu could hold a tune.

 

And he thinks...he thinks that he can hear Yondu singing now. He takes a deep breath, and smells ship oil, alcohol, and centaurian soap. And maybe Peter is still dreaming, and maybe he doesn’t want to wake up anymore. He’s eight years old again, and the batteries on his walkman died weeks ago. Yondu has the maudlin boy sat on his lap, showing him star charts, before Horuz comes in to the room. He is carrying something wrapped in an old cloth

 

“Looks like Horuz here’s got a present for you, boy.”

 

It’s his walkman, modified with a new power source. Peter listens to part of a song, then gently removes the headphones and puts them on Yondu’s head, before he presses play again. Yondu makes a face as the Terran music fills his ears, and Peter can’t help giggling.

 

He giggles, and the arms around him tighten.

 

Is Peter asleep or awake? He doesn’t know anymore.

 

 


	2. Another Brick in the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think you’ll find, Mister the Destroyer, that I am the one that makes the orders on this ship.”

“...then got word that those Chitauri bastards been seen hanging around Morag. Well, they don’t take too kindly to those mini hadron guns your rat friend made. And we zapped them all, boy. Every single one. They suffered. One or two of ‘em screamed. And when we were done, we went and found you.”

 

He knows that Peter can’t hear him, and wouldn’t be able to even if he was awake, but it comforts him to tell the story. To believe that his is reassuring the Terran that he has been found. That he is safe now.

 

“Bed’s set up.” If Kraglin has anything to say about finding his captain sat on the floor with a sleeping Terran in his arms, he doesn’t voice it, and Yondu is glad for that.

 

Now that he is dry, Peter has started shivering slightly. Yondu shifts his weight and stands, carrying the Terran (who, he notes sadly, weighs almost nothing now) and following Kraglin out into the corridor. To his surprise they turn not in the direction of Peter’s room on their ship, but down to the end of the corridor.

 

This was Horuz’s room.

 

“Right next to the engine here.” Kraglin explains. “You can smell the fumes. No mistaking that smell. Thought maybe if he wakes up...and he’s still...well, it might help him to realise where he is.”

 

“That’s good thinking.”

 

Inside, Yondu quickly replaces the towel with a robe, and lays Peter in the bed. He hears Horuz’s voice in his mind, with a few choice words about Peter being asleep in his bed, and despite everything that the last twenty four hours has thrown at him, Yondu laughs.

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t know how long he has been sat there when the youngest of the Ravagers, Doc, appears in the doorway.

 

“Sorry, Cap’n, but you wanted to know when we got to Knowhere.”

 

Yondu nods. “They here?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah they’re here.” Doc hesitates, then steps into the room. “Can I see Star-Lord?”

 

Yondu nods, beckoning for the young man to come over.

 

They found the Krylorian in the ruins of a medical colony, four systems across from Xandar. Ronan, of course. He had been only just about old enough to no longer be called a toddler, while Peter had been sixteen and not really that interested in being followed everywhere by a sycophantic sidekick. So it was rather unfortunate when that was what happened.

 

Unfortunate, and hilarious.

 

Growing up as a Ravager (and, ironically, a great field medic), Doc had eventually found the confidence to be his own person. But he had never really stopped looking up to Peter like a brother.

 

“Why don’t you sit with him for me.” Yondu says, standing and maneuvering the young man into the vacated seat. “Keep him company.”

 

Doc nods, eyes never leaving Peter's sleeping form.

 

* * *

 

 

“You will take us to our friend immediately.”

 

“I think you’ll find, Mister the Destroyer, that I am the one that makes the orders on this ship.” Yondu stands in the middle of the room with the Ravagers behind him.

 

“Yondu, please.” Gamora’s eyes a bright. “We just want to see him.”

 

“Yeah well then maybe you shouldn’t have lost him in the first place.”

 

“Hey, that ain’t fair”

 

“Life ain’t fair, Rat. Less than a month in you lose him to the enemy. And weren’t no you on Morag for the rescuing.”

 

“You did not inform us that you had located Quill until afterwards.”

 

“You didn’t fucking ask neither, Brute. Just ran off chasing wild geese.”

 

Drax tilts his head to the side in thought. "That is a metaphor."

 

Yondu _just_ manages to stop himself from screaming.

 

“You weren’t there for him. We were.”

 

“Trust me, Yondu Udonta, you were only able to rescue him because Thanos allowed it.” Gamora’s sterner now, her eyes fixed on the Centaurian’s. “To deliver his message...to me. Now step aside and let us see our friend”

 

“I am Groot.”

 

Yondu carefully opens his coat, and whistles.

 

The change in atmosphere is almost comical. Rocket draws a pistol, Drax his knives, and Groot grows two feet. On the other side of the chamber each member of Yondu’s crew holds a weapons.

 

And in the centre of it all stands Gamora, the yaka arrow barely an inch from her eye.

 

“Your friend? He’s blind.” Yondu steps forward. He lowers his voice and they could almost be alone in the room. “The things your bastard of a daddy did left him blind, and he can’t hear, never mind all the NIGHTMARES he's got trapping him in HERE.” Yondu jabs a finger at his own head for emphasis as he shouts. “AND HE’S LIVING IN THAT _HELL_ BECAUSE OF _YOU_.”

 

He steps closer, almost whispering in her ear.

 

“So, Gamora, you give me one good reason not to whistle this here thing all the way through your pretty little skull?”

 

“Peter.” Her eyes never leave the yaka arrow.

 

After a pause that feels like an hour, Yondu nods, seeming to almost collapse on his feet. He reaches out to pluck the arrow out of the sky while with his other hand he orders his men to lower their weapons. He walks past Gamora, who has her eyes closed in relief, and addresses the other Guardians.

 

“Fine. You can see him. But if he’s sleeping, don’t go waking him. He needs the rest.”

 

“I am Groot.”

 

"Kraglin will take you there." Yondu sheaths the arrow, exhales, and walks past them towards the door.

 

“Yondu?”

 

He stops at the door, but doesn’t look back into the room even as Gamora speaks to him.

 

“You’re right. Thanos did this to punish me for my betrayal. I am sorry.”

 

“Not me that needs to hear it.”

 

“Yes it is.”

 

And Yondu walks away.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes a few seconds for Yondu to realise that his hand is now the central point of a new dent in the internal hull. And he is having trouble focusing on it.

 

He regains composure, then steps into the observation room.

 

A stark looking bench faces a transparent wall looking out onto space, and their current orbit of Knowhere. The multicoloured cloud of the nebula frames the Celestial skull, and it is beautiful. He sits along the curve of the transparent wall, hands rested on his knees as he looks out into space.

 

“Yondu?”

 

“Guardians with him?”

 

Kraglin nods, slowly entering the room. He’s carrying two cannisters, one of which he throws at his Captain. “Doc’s got things covered”

 

“Quill asleep?” Yondu asks before taking in a mouthful of water.

 

“Was when I left.” Kraglin stops in the middle of the room. “Want me to go back…”

 

“No. No they’re a bunch of a-holes, but they’re his friend’s too. And was the rat’s tech that helped us on Morag”

 

Kraglin allows himself a smile. “Forget what that green bitch said. You rescued him, Boss. Just like you said you would.”

 

Yondu’s expression darkens. “Did I? ‘cause you ask me, he’s not looking very rescued.”

 

Kraglin nods. “You should get some sleep.”

 

“Not tired.”

 

“That’s a load of stinking shit and you and I both know it.”

 

In any other situation that would have earned the First Mate a sucker punch. Now, Yondu can only manage a breathless laugh.

 

“We ain’t finished the job yet, Yondu.” Kraglin kneels down so that he is eye level with his Captain. “You’ve got to stay focused. Because right now your boy’s living in that hell you mentioned and there’s only one person I know in this here universe that’ll be able to drag him back. He’s going to need you, and that’s why you need to get some sleep now. You’ll be no use to him in this state.”

 

“I told you I...” Yondu pauses, and looks at the cannister in his hand, before looking back at Kraglin. “You little…”

 

Kraglin is just about able to stop Yondu from cracking his head open against the floor. Lifting the sleeping Captain in a fireman’s carry, he leaves the cannisters on the floor as he exits the observation room.

 

“I really, REALLY hope that you’ll thank me for this tomorrow.”

 

Kraglin has often pointed out how the boy’s made Yondu soft. How as a youngling he could get away with murder. How pretty much the entire crew except Doc daydreams about taking a sledgehammer to that fucking mixtape.

 

Kraglin never pointed out the day that, when a stranger once asked Yondu if he was a father, the Centaurian had not even paused before his reply.

 

“Yeah, got me a boy.”

 

 


	3. Spirit in the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu thinks that his crew are now responsible for a galaxy wide shortage in flannel pyjamas

The crew have been rushing across Knowhere and the various nearby colonies, and returning with their goods. Enough food and fuel to last them a while, medical supplies, some entertainment material and even a better chair for their captain to use during his vigil.

 

In addition to all of that, Yondu thinks that his crew are now responsible for a galaxy wide shortage in flannel pyjamas, but Peter seems to appreciate the feeling of comfortable, clean clothes against his skin, if the way he has taken to curling up on his side and hugging himself in his sleep is anything to go by.

 

He rests his hand on Peter’s head, thumb gently stroking over the Mind’s Eye. Yondu has never been one for religion, but right now he was willing to try anything, and Peter seems to benefit from the touch physically, even if not mentally.

 

“Where you going to in there, Boy?” Yondu says, quietly. “You on Terra with your Momma? Adventuring with your friends?” He smiles. “You better not be stealing anything from me, Quill.”

 

Peter takes a deep breath, and for a second Yondu can almost believe that it is a reply. The hope lasts until he has clicked his fingers next to the Terran’s ear, and received no reaction.

 

“There’s nothing broke, Cap’n.” Doc had said. “He’s seeing and hearing, brain’s just not getting the info. Too many nightmares in the way, I guess.”

 

Yondu ponders how much pain and anguish a person would have to go through before they can get to this state, and then wishing that he had not. It was almost easier when he had thought that Thanos had done this to the boy.

 

Now he knows that Peter did this to himself, is doing this to himself, and somehow it makes things ten times worse.

 

“World was a scary place for a while, wasn’t it.” He says. “Don’t need to hide now though, Quill. You’re safe. This ain’t no dream.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next time Peter moves, Yondu is almost asleep in his chair. It takes him a moment for his thoughts to catch up, by which point Peter is sitting up, knees against his chest, and a hand feeling along the edge of the bed.

 

When he starts to move again, Yondu’s first instinct is to reach out and stop him, but he holds back. There was no telling how long Peter would be...like this...and he needed to learn how to navigate his world now. Better done under his own initiative that forced onto him.

 

Peter slowly feels his way along the wall, taking a tentative step as he follows it round, one hand feeling out in front of him, his weight against the internal hull. The steps, his first in who knew how long, must have been painful, and he grimaced more than once.

 

He startles when Yondu placed a hand on his shoulder. Of course, he must not have known that the Captain was there. He reaches up, hesitantly feeling along the rough hand, the sleeve of his coat.

 

“Right here, boy.” The Captain quickly remembers himself, and gives the Terran’s shoulder what he hopes is an encouraging squeeze, but Peter...somehow defying physical law...moves further into the wall, panicking.

 

Yondu steps back, moves away. Peter waits for a while, then takes another small step. The Centaurian wants nothing more than to reach out and take his weight, help him along, and alleviate the pain he is clearly in, but he doesn’t, because Peter has told him not to.

 

He’s had a month of others choosing what happens to his body, what his body is for. Of being a thing, a toy, existing only for another’s sadistic pleasure and needs.

 

Now, Yondu realises that he needs to give Peter that power back to him. If he makes it clear that he doesn’t want to be held, moved...touched...then that has to be the case. So as much as he doesn’t want to Yondu follows orders. He stays back, trying to ignore how useless he feels, while Peter works his way along the wall.

 

After what feels like an age, they reach the door. It’s open, and Peter feels his way around the frame, stepping out into the corridor.

 

“Where you going, boy?” Yondu whispers, looking up and down the corridor. The ship is docked at Knowhere, so there’s no vibrations from the engine, and they are going the wrong way for him to be following the fumes...wait a moment.

 

Yondu smiles. “You can smell the food. You hungry, Quill? Shit, I bet you’re starving.”

 

Peter stops again, thoughts clearly rushing through his mind. Then the movement picks up a bit, faster now as he gets used to feeling his way along. Maybe he remembers this corridor, and that is giving him confidence. It isn’t long before they are turning into the canteen, and Peter stops by the door.

 

“Hey.” One of the Ravengers shouts. “Good to see you on your feet, Quill.”

 

“You hungry? We got plenty.”

 

“Not that! Just give him soup.” Doc says. “You’ll shock his system. He’s not had much solid food the last month.”

 

“Don’t need to be a doc to see that.” Kraglin says. “He’s skin and bone.”

 

Peter is oblivious to the conversation of course. He’s still leant on the doorframe, fear in his unseeing eyes, and Yondu thinks he’s slipped back into another one of his dreams until the Terran reaches out with his hand, grasping at the air.

 

His first step away from the doorframe is so unsteady that Yondu nearly grabs him, but Peter manages to stay upright, feet sliding along the floor, hands waving. His breathing is hitched, he’s clearly terrified.

 

He takes another step, stumbles, and sinks to his knees, tears visible in his eyes as the Captain crouches down in front of him. Yondu hesitates, then quickly taps the Terran on the shoulder.

 

“Who? Who are you?”

 

They are the first words he’s said since they found him. The voice is broken, raspy, a shadow of its former self forced from a throat burned by screaming, begging, crying.

 

Remembering what had gotten through to him before, Yondu gently places a hand on each shoulder, waiting to see if Peter reacts badly to the touch. When he doesn’t, the Centaurian slides his hands up and brings their foreheads together. The effect is immediate. Peter stops trembling and he nods against the embrace.

 

“Yondu.”

 

It’s simple communication, screaming a thousand words, when Peter leans against him. They stay there for a moment, and then stand together.

 

Relieved to finally be given permission to do so, Yondu takes his weight and slowly resumes the journey to the galley table. With each step he taps Peter’s arm. One finger, one step, then step two, then three. On the fourth step, he encourages Peter to reach out and feel the top of the chair, and under his own steam he slips into it, hands coming up to feel along the tabletop in front of him.

 

Yondu pats him on the shoulder, hoping that the ‘Well Done’ gesture gets through, and sits beside him.

 

He turns back to his crew, who have watched the whole thing in silence and with a few agape mouths.

 

“Well.” He says. “Why ain’t one of you no hopers giving the damn boy some soup?”

 

“On it, Captain.” Kraglin shouts, and Yondu doesn’t think the first mate can fill a bowl fast enough. “Do um...do we need to...feed him?”

 

“He look like an infant?” Yondu snaps, then he sits back down and gives Kraglin the closest to an apologetic looks that he is capable of. “You saw how far he got by himself. All the way into the room. Just put the bowl in front of him, he’ll manage.”

 

Kraglin does so, and Yondu brings Peter’s hands to locate the bowl. There’s a pause while he feels around the edges, flinches as his finger touches the hot liquid, then he leans forward, and lifts the bowl to his lips, sipping slowly.

 

“See.” Yondu says triumphantly, feeling a little guilty about talking as if Peter wasn’t in the room. He compensates by giving him another pat on the shoulder, before turning to his own meal.

 

Peter takes two more sips of the soup, then holds himself perfectly still. “Yondu?”

 

Yondu brings his hand back to Peter’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. ‘Still here’. Peter nods, and returns to his soup, reassured that he hasn’t been left alone in the darkness.

 

Yondu just wishes that he could tell the Terran that this isn’t a dream.

 

 


	4. Hooked on a Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Peter thinks he must still be dreaming, because Yondu never cries.

Peter likes this dream. It’s dark and silent, which is safe. He is warm, and always comfortable, and while sometimes there is pain here it is never followed by more suffering. Instead he feels someone clean the cut, or hold an ice pack against the bruise, and he is comforted.

 

Whenever he gets scared, or feels lost, then someone is always there. And when he gets so tired that it aches, then he feels himself being led somewhere where he can rest. Sometimes he doesn’t even make that far, he just falls asleep on his feet, in that feeling of being protected and cared about, and he is picked up and carried the rest of the way.

 

Sometimes, he forgets about the Chitauri, and Thanos.

 

He feels himself getting stronger. His appetite has returned, and while he does get tired easily he doesn’t tremble with weakness now. He can walk without pain. His world is small, but he knows his way around it, and there is always someone nearby willing to help when he does get the urge to explore further.

 

It’s nice.

 

He is starting to learn a new language. A tap on the shoulder, “I’m here”. His shoulder gently squeezed. “It’s okay.” A pat on the back is well done, and foreheads together is hello. That’s unique to Yondu though. Each member of the crew has their own way of saying hello, ways unique to them. Identifiers.

 

Doc wraps his hand around Peter’s closed fist, and suddenly Peter is seventeen again and being excitedly lead through a commerce colony to the stall with the music boxes. “Just like your ear things.”

 

They buy one.

 

Mali, the engineer, has a medallion around his neck, shaped like a bird. He places this in Peter’s hand, and Peter is a teenager, and Mali and Horuz are changing one of the fueling rods, while Peter watches and asks question after question.

 

They answer each one, and Mali even lets Peter restart the engine afterwards.

 

Kraglin interlocks their fingers. And when he does, Peter is eight years old again and begging Kraglin to teach him how to fight. The First Mate finally decides that enough is enough, but when a slightly bruised but smiling Peter comes back for his second lesson, Kraglin also decides that he likes this kid.

 

Peter flinches, burying his face in the pillow. He knows how to fight.

 

Why didn’t he _fight_ them? Why was he _weak_? Why did he _let_ them...

 

* * *

 

Peter likes this dream too.

 

“#I can’t stop this feeling. Deep inside of me.”

 

“Have I ever told you that you have the most beautiful singing voice?”

 

“No.” Gamora smiles as she looks at at the roof of the bunk. “No I don’t think you have ever worded it quite that way before.”

 

“Well you do.”

 

They lay side by side.

 

“#Girl, you just don’t realize what you do to me.”

 

Gamora stops smiling, sitting up in the bunk.

 

“What is…”

 

She puts her finger to his lip. “Listen?”

 

She gets up, standing in the middle of the room, before turning back to look at him.

 

“Can you hear that?”

 

Peter shakes his head.

 

“Listen.”

 

He does. And...there, he can hear it. It’s laughter.

 

It’s Thanos.

 

“Gamora!”

 

And there is nothing that Peter can do as the wall explodes behind Gamora, sucking her out into space.

 

* * *

 

Peter’s stomach and chest burn with the effort to breath, he can’t...his heart is pounding so hard that he fears it will break through.

 

He feels himself being rolled onto his side, and a hand rubs firmly against his back in a slow motion as he vomits what little content his stomach has. Slowly he feels himself calming down, and the same hand slides onto his arm and up to his forehead, where it brushes his hair back before resting there, thumb gently stroking over...what had Yondu called it once, Mind’s eye?

 

“Monk’s of Shao-Lom, you heard of them boy?”

 

Nine year old Peter shakes his head.

 

“Of course you haven’t.” Yondu says, encouraging the boy to sit beside him on the bench. He has a star chart open in front of him. “Crazy bunch, but they do some powerful things with their crazy. Live on Titan, that’s where we’re going tomorrow.”

 

Peter is lifted, and he feels a cup against his lips. He drinks greedily, cleaning the taste from his mouth and soothing the burning in his throat and chest. The gentle rhythm continues through his hair as he lays back down, and the nightmares and fear fade replaced by a feeling of contentment that follows him back into sleep.

 

Because this is part of the language too. Hand brushing through his hair. It means “Loved” and “Safe”.

 

He’s standing on Titan with Yondu, watching Monks lift rocks as big as he is, using only their thoughts.

 

* * *

 

A knife is held to the back of his hand. Peter panics, until that same hand is brought up to feel his face, and the uncomfortable itching mess of hair growing there. Peter nods, and lets the knife glide down his cheek, chin and neck. He can feel each place where the skin was cut, and afterwards warm water washed it away. A hand holds his shoulder.

 

He feels the knife slice his skin, feels the blood bubble to the surface of his face. Thanos smiling from his throne as Peter writhes on the ground before him, suffering slice after slice from invisible blades, whips and points against his naked skin. And they won’t stop. They won’t stop...he screams...

 

He’s pulled into an embrace, head resting against a firm shoulder, arms holding him steady and a hand rubbing up and down his back in a smooth motion. He doesn’t understand why until he realises that he is screaming in this dream too, and he can feel tears slide down his now smooth cheeks. He feels like a dam bursts and everything comes flushing out in the open, and he screams and cries so hard that he feels like he might shatter, but he doesn’t. He is held together.

 

When it’s over, he feels heavy. He rests there in that limbo that is not quite asleep or awake, being ever so slightly rocked, and the Terran thinks that if someone told him that this was it, he would have to spend the rest of his life right here like this, then he would not argue.

 

The arms around him loosen, and Peter feels something cover his back, his arms encouraged into the sleeves of a heavy coat that smells of sweat and leather and that ridiculous musk that Kraglin insists on wearing that makes him smell like the inside of a Xandarian spice shop. Peter buries himself in the coat, and leans forward again. In front of him it smells like ship oil, alcohol and centaurian soap.

 

He’s ten years old, and Horuz is showing him how to change the oil on the ship engines.

 

He’s fifteen and Kraglin jokes that maybe he should be the one asking Peter for fighting lessons.

 

He’s twenty and Yondu has a fever, but of course refuses to rest. Peter stands beside his chair, and Yondy’s delirious state brings out “I’m proud of you, boy.”

 

“Yeah. You’re definitely sick.”

 

“I mean it Quill. I’m hard on you, I know. But I’m proud of yah. And don’t let anything I ever say or do let you think otherwise.”

 

The arms around him tighten, and a hand runs through his hair. Someone else is patting him on the back. Peter reaches out, and their fingers interlock.

 

He thinks he can hear voices...bubbling conversation.

 

“Heard the scream right across the ship. What happened?”

 

“I don’t know, he just started like this.”

 

A hand squeezes his shoulder.

 

“Doc’ll have something to help him sleep.”

 

“No.” Peter is shocked by the sound of his own voice. “No. I don’t want to sleep yet.”

 

“Quill?” Yondu holds him at arms length, and Peter focuses on the flame motif on the breast of his coat. Peter brings his hand up, feeling around the edges. Are those HIS hands? They look so small.

 

“Quill?” Yondu repeats, placing a hand under his chin and tilting his head up so that their eyes meet.

 

“I want to stay here?”

 

“Holy shit.” Kraglin whispers. “Well looks who back.”

 

And Peter thinks he must still be dreaming, because Yondu never cries.

 

Peter’s head is brought back to the Centaurian’s shoulder, and he thinks that he would be very happy to just spend the rest of his life right here. He hears the soft click as the door is closed behind Kraglin, and Peter and Yondu are alone in the room, one holding the other together.

 

Peter likes this dream.

 

* * *

 

“You sure this is a good idea, Captain?”

 

Yondu leans back in his captain’s seat, one of his troll dolls passing from hand to hand. “He’s been on this ship for days. Terran’s might look like Xandarian’s, Kraglin, but they ain’t. They need fresh air and sunlight, else they get sick.”

 

“But actually taking him on a job. He’s only just got his seeing back.”

 

“Trade negotiation.” Yondu says. “And I’ve known Janga since I was Doc’s age. Don’t need to be telling you how long ago that was. Still, you can come with if you’re worried.”

 

He passes the doll to Kraglin.

 

“I’m not worried…” Kraglin says, contemplating the doll before putting it on the shelf behind him. “I’m just…”

 

Yondu’s expression makes it clear that he isn’t buying it.

 

“Right...fine. I’m worried. I’ve gone soft, just like you. Shit and shit again.”

 

Kraglin cut his rant short as Peter slowly crept on the bridge.

 

“Wish you could have heard that, Quill.” Yondu says, standing and pulling the Xandarian into a one armed hug that is clearly not appreciated. “Kraglin here’s gone soft over yah.”

 

“I’m going to murder you in your sleep, Yondu.”

 

“You wouldn’t be the first to fail at that.” Peter says, while Kraglin pushes himself out of the embrace. “You’d be the third actually.”

 

“And that’s just the ones the boy knows about.”

 

The First Mate mutters something under his breath.

 

“We ready to leave?” Peter says, seeming almost excited.

 

“Ready? We nearly left without you, Boy.”

 

Kraglin takes a moment to consider the Terran. “Are you ready?”

 

With his sight returned, and dressed in his own clothes, it is almost possible to believe that the last six weeks had ever happened.

 

If you ignore the haunted look in Peter’s eyes, the way he flinches at loud noises, and the way he would sometimes slip into a vacant absence, just staring into nothing, rocking from foot to foot, his lips mouthing unheard conversations.

 

Right now though, he looks like the old Quill, ready to get up to something good, something bad, or a little bit of both

 

“Ready for anything.” And if it only sounds about 12% convincing, then no one says so.

 

Kraglin pauses to check the charge on his own weapon. It is just a trade negotiation, but he still has a bad feeling about this.

 

 


	5. Moonage Daydream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Centaurian language, the same word is used for Captain as for Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional TW from this chapter for discussions/depictions of Self Harm (And why that isn't included in the Archive Warnings I have no idea).

Peter pauses at the base of the ramp, taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of the sun on his face for the first time in...he tries to think. Months? He’s lost track of time.

 

“You going to be there all day, Boy?” Yondu says, laughing.

 

“No.” Peter shakes his head. “No. I’m good. Just...this is a nice planet”

 

“Bit on the warm side.” Kraglin complains as he looks up at the sky, a hand shielding his eyes from the two suns. “So if you’ve known this Janga for so long, Captain, how come I’ve never heard of him?”

 

“Her.” Yondu says, correcting him. “Technically Xem, but I ain’t going to argue. She’s got four arms and a pistol for each.”

 

“A gun slinger. Sounds like my kinda lady.” Peter says, winking as he passes Yondu on the path.

 

“Good luck, Boy. She’s an egg layer.”

 

"He's still playing like nothing's wrong?" Kraglin mutters as he catches up with Yondu.

 

“Well, hopefully today will help.”

 

“Think it might take more than a bit of fresh air, Captain.” Kraglin says, quietly.

 

No one sees the hooded figure standing in the shadows. But she sees them, and starts to follow.

 

* * *

 

The first thing that Peter notices when they step into the bar is the smell of incense. Just breathing the air seems to be making him high, and sick to his stomach. If his companions are affected then they don’t let on.

 

“Janga?” Yondu says.

 

The...whatever she is...that turns to meet them is aquatic, if the strange apparatus of water pipes that wrap around her grey skin and...Peter guesses they are gills...are anything to go by. Otherwise she is relatively humanoid in shape, if you ignore the four arms jutting out of her body in a cross shape.

 

“Yondu Udonta.” Peter startles. He can ‘hear’ her voice, but there doesn’t seem to be any corresponding movement from her lips. The voice just happens. “It has been too long my friend. And you have brought friends of your own.”

 

“Janga Malefican, Peter Quill, Kraglin Obfonteri.”

 

“A pleasure.”

 

“Ma’am.” Peter says, smiling. “So it is just the arms that you have four of?”

 

“Quill!” Yondu snaps back.

 

“Just making conversation.” Peter says, winking at Janga who smiles fondly in return.

 

“So much like how your father was at your age.” Janga says, reaching out and taking Peter’s hand in three of her own.

 

“You knew my Dad?”

 

“Yondu and I have known each other for nearly fifty of what you call years.” She looks from his hand back to his face, and Peter almost feels as if she is seeing right through him. Her smile falters slightly, then returns even warmer than before. “You are a hero on Xandar. A leader in the battle.”

 

“I...lead the dance off. Don’t know much about the battle.” Peter laughs hesitantly, suddenly very eager to pull his hand out of Janga’s gentle grip. As it is she lets go first, turning to take Kraglin’s hand in the same way.

 

“So many friends lost in that battle. Close friends. And not just in your crew. You are Xandarian.”

 

“No one on the ground there that cared about me.”

 

“Does not mean you did not care about them.” Janga gives the hand a gentle squeeze before letting go and turning back to face Yondu.

 

“While I am sure you can trust your crew with your life, Yondu Udonta, the matter we have to discuss is very delicate. I must ask for complete privacy.”

 

"Well then why don't you boys go sightseeing." Yondu takes a handful of units from his pocket. "We'll be...an hour?"

 

Janga nods, while Peter takes the units quietly and slips out of the bar, followed by Kraglin.

 

Yondu watches them leave, then turns turns back to Janga.

 

She takes a deep breath, holding it for a second before releasing it slowly through her apparatus. "I can see why you contacted me."

 

She indicates a soft seating area in the middle of the bar, but while Yondu sits, she does not herself.

 

“It interests me. In the Centaurian language, the same word is used for Captain as for Father. And so it is in your life, Yondu Udonta.”

 

“I just try to be what my crew need.” Yondu sits back, his legs crossed. “Sometimes that’s a kick where it hurts, and sometimes that’s a pat on the back.”

 

“And now?”

 

"I’ll admit to you Janga. I got no idea how to help him. Thought I did, but then he starts wandering around like one bout of crying was all it took. He’s trying to be strong, too strong. Too strong for me to get through. I try and he pushes me away. I’m scared it’ll tear him apart before I figure him all out.”

 

Janga nods. “It is a delicate situation.”

 

“What does he need?”

 

"He needs you to be understanding, even if you don't understand." Janga wanders around the room, studying the ornamentation. "He's scared, Yondu. Terrified. It's getting worse. He's lost control of the pain, and any day now he may take it too far. He is so desperate to reach out to someone. To have someone reach out to him. But who can he go to for the comfort and reassurance he craves? You?"

 

"Of course. Anytime. Boy should know that."

 

"He doesn’t though.” Janga says, sitting beside the Centaurian. “He can't, because he loves you. You are his mentor, his friend, his brother. The only person who has ever given him hope and acceptance. The only one who has ever believed in him. The risk of damaging that, destroying it entirely, is too great. He can't bear the thought of you judging him. Seeing him as a freak, the weak runt that his parents always called him. What if you abandon him as they did? Where would he go? He would have nothing. No one. The pain would be all that was left."

 

"I'm not getting you, Janga. Quill was never..."

 

"I am not talking about Peter Quill."

 

* * *

 

The Terran is lost in his own thoughts when the glass appears on the table in front of him.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“It’s beer.” The Xandarian says, sitting opposite him.

 

“It’s purple?”

 

The Xandarian shrugs. “It’s purple beer.”

 

She watches as the Terran sips from his beer, his face scrunching at first before the lines smooth out and he contemplates the glass with a nod of approval. “Actually that’s not bad.”

 

She sits unseen at the back of the establishment, her own drink untouched in front of her as she watches them from beneath her hood.

 

The Terran and his Xandarian friend continue their drinks in a companionable silence, oblivious to the danger around them.

 

And Nebula smiles.

 

 


	6. Written on the Subway Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s all you ever think about. What can you do to be stronger? What can you do to get them to notice you? You try so hard but you’re still worthless.”

Peter remembers drinking purple beer. His next conscious memory is sitting in a chair, bound by thick ropes, and facing the wall of what appears to be an abandoned meeting room. Cobwebs and dust cover the floors and walls, and black damp surrounds the large window to his right, which looks out into sky. He can hear sea birds, so guesses they are on the coast.

 

“What was in that drink?” He doesn’t realise that he spoke out loud until Kraglin answers from behind.

 

“A bald girl with two knives and really quick reflexes.”

 

“Blue skin.”

 

“Luphomoid.”

 

“We screwed.” Peter struggles against his bonds, but it is no good. “Why are we still alive?”

 

“You’re complaining about not being dead.”

 

Peter is just able to make out Kraglin in the corner of his eye, tied to a similar chair about three feet away, facing the opposite wall.

 

“What can I say. I’m impatient. It’s one of my flaws.” He thinks that he has a hand loose, but he only succeeds in twisting it further into the ropes, causing it to throb painfully as the skin burns.

 

“Relax.” Kraglin says. “Yondu’s probably already turning the planet over looking for you. Just got to hang tight.”

 

“Hang tight, that’s a Terran phrase.”

 

“What can I say, you’re contagious.” Kraglin taps his feet against the ground, eyes studying their surroundings. He makes note of the door. Shut and probably locked, but it’s only wood. Easily shattered. Chairs probably would be as well if they weren’t bolted to the ground. “Can you move your chair at all?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“She’s good.”

 

“Kraglin, meet Nebula. Nebula, meet Kraglin. Like I said, we’re screwed.”

 

“Nice to finally have a face for the name.” The Xandarian begins a testing struggle against his bonds, but quickly decides that it is a waste of valuable strength. “Yondu will be here soon. Can’t see a single planet being an obstacle, it only took him a month to find you in a galaxy.”

 

“Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.”

 

“Well you keep refusing to.”

 

“And what is that suppose to mean?” Peter throws over his shoulder.

 

“You acting as if everything is okay. Like shit you’re okay.” Kraglin sits up in his chair as much as his bonds allow. “Captain’s worried about you, so forgive me if I tend to go the same way.”

 

“Yeah well I don’t need your pity and I certainly don’t need Yondu’s.”

 

“God you self centred little brat.” The Xandarian is conscious of his voice echoing about the room. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have him? To have someone who gives a damn about you? He tore a galaxy apart looking for you, then made himself near sick afterwards just caring for you. I had to drug him to get him to fucking sleep, Quill.”

 

“Kraglin…”

 

“You know my parent’s abandoned me when I was five years old? Just dropped me on the street for slavers to pick up. Do you have any idea what I would give for someone, anyone, in my life who actually cared about me the way the Captain cares about you. A parent’s love. Anyone’s love. But I never had anyone give a damn. If I went missing ain’t no one who would care enough to come looking for me. Crew would be too busy picking a new First Mate, and Yondu’s got you to look out for, because you’re the one that’s special! And all you can do is sit there and complain about it.”

 

The room falls silent.

 

“Now who's being self centred?”

 

“Fuck you, Quill.”

 

Silence again.

 

“Look, Man. I’m sorry.”

 

Kraglin doesn’t answer.

 

* * *

 

It was official. Peter Quill could not be left alone.

 

Yondu subconscious was already making plans for the modifications he could make to his ship, including 24 hour recorded surveillance, locks that refused to open for anyone with Terran DNA, and perhaps a hired bodyguard.

 

Right now though he needed to focus on the fact that two of his men were missing.

 

Of course the crew had wasted no time in organising themselves, each group selecting a leader and then disbanding to all four winds. Yondu and Janga made up the fifth group, focused on the central settlement where the abduction, if eyewitnesses were to be believed, had taken place.

 

Yondu was pleased to hear that his boys had put up a pretty good fight against the ‘modified superhuman’ that attacked them, until the Terran had received a blow to the head that had distracted Kraglin enough for them both to be subdued.

 

None of the eyewitnesses had dared to intervene, not after seeing what happened to the few bystanders that had. It angered Yondu, but he also understood.

 

Janga kept up a silent escort, concentrating so hard on reaching out with her mind, seeking any familiar thought patterns, than she didn’t dare speak. It meant that Yondu was alone with his thoughts while he searched first the bar where the abduction had taken place (or rather, what was left of the bar where the abduction had taken place) and then the surrounding area.

 

Finally, he found something. Blood. A tiny splash, Terran by the smell, and then another slightly further away. Another slightly further on for that. The trail took them down to the end of the long street, where the business district started to slowly fade into housing and agricultural land, some industrial lining the cliff edge.

 

“I can sense them.” Janga said.

 

* * *

 

When the door opens, Peter allows himself a glimmer of hope until he looks round and sees who it is entering the room.

 

“You would think that intergalactic superheroes would be easier to contact.” Nebula’s robotic voice echoes within the room as she takes a knife into her hand and stands in front of the Terran. Her other hand is concealed by a thick glove, and judging by the sounds emanating from it when the limb moves, a lot of cybernetics have been involved in replacing the limb.

 

“Tell me the frequency that I need to contact the Guardians.”

 

“Right, because I can memorise long strings of numbers.” Peter says back.

 

“Tell me, or I start cutting off pieces of your friend.”

 

“Could you start with my nose?” Kraglin says from behind Peter. “I’m kinda hate my nose.”

 

“SILENCE!” Nebula shouts.

 

“I don’t know the frequency.” Peter says, desperately. “I don’t even run with the Guardians anymore.”

 

“Abandoned so soon.” Nebula smiles, her robotic voice lowering to a menacing tone. “I know what my Father did to you. Made you weak. Defenceless.”

 

“Relating are you?” Kraglin spits, earning him Nebula’s full attention as she steps around to face him in his chair.

 

“Kraglin.” Peter hisses through his teeth. “What are you doing?”

 

“Gamora told me all about you. Her bitter little child of a sister. Because didn’t matter how hard you worked, Daddy always loved her more.”

 

The knife hovers in front of his eye, but Kraglin doesn’t even flinch.

 

“You hoping that you can get the Guardians, kill Gamora and then Thanos will start magically loving you? You’re wasting your time. He’ll just hate you more.”

 

“I have no interest in Thanos’s love.”

 

“Bullshit.” Kraglin doesn’t break eye contact even as the knife comes closer. “It’s all you ever think about. What can you do to be stronger? What can you do to get them to notice you? You try so hard but you’re still worthless.”

 

Nebula screams, and the knife slices his cheek, drawing blood. He laughs, even when the knife slices again, this time his shoulder.

 

“Stop it. I’ll tell you the frequency.” Peter shouts, struggling against his bonds. Nebula smiles, twirling the knife painfully in front of Kraglin before going back to face Peter.

 

“It’s…” Peter takes a deep breath. “It’s a two fold frequency. You have to narrow down the band, then pinpoint it.”

 

“Peter, you’re leading your friends into a trap.”

 

“First set of numbers is…” He closes his eyes. “5 4 3 2 1.”

 

Nebula holds the knife to his face.

 

“I’m being serious, Man. It’s 5 4 3 2 1.”

 

And finally, the door opens again.

 

Nebula flies to the centre of the room, stood between the chairs with a knife held against the back of each of her prisoner’s heads as her gaze settles on Yondu.

 

“Better late than never.” Peter mutters.

 

“Centaurian.”

 

Yondu nods his greeting. “Thanks for looking after my Boys for me. I’ll be taking them back now.”

 

Nebula smiles. “You are a fool.”

 

“So I’ve been told.”

 

“Very well, but I have a game for you.” Nebula says, giving Yondu a half smile. “You may also call it a gift, because I am going to let you take one away. Choose one to live. The Terran, or the Xandarian. One I return to you alive, the other dies...eventually.”

 

“I ain’t making that choice.” Yondu looks to each knife.

 

“Which do you love more.” She looks at Kraglin. “Which deserves to live.” Then at Peter, before turning back to Yondu. “Choose, Centuarian.”

 

Yondu knows that even if he takes his arrow, he won’t have time. She could embed the blades through their skulls before she had even started dying.

 

“Choose who lives.”

 

He doesn’t know which breaks his heart more, the way that Peter is struggling against his bonds, or the way that Kraglin just sits, eyes closed and head bowed as if he has already accepted his fate, because he knows who Yondu is going to choose.

 

And the Captain is never going to forgive himself for it.

 

The turning of the tables took mere seconds, but Yondu can only ever remember it in slow motion. Three shots fire, two knocking the knives from Nebula’s hands, the third a random shot above her head. The distraction gives Yondu the time he needed to ready his arrow and lose it, but Nebula grabs the weapon out of the air and goes to snap it before being caught off guard by another shot to her abdomen, fired from one of the three pistols currently being wielded by Janga. Nebula’s wounds quickly heal, but they have given Yondu enough time wield the arrow again, severing the bonds binding his men to their chairs.

 

Even with four adversaries, Nebula proves to be more than a match, and a swift and well aimed kick to her breathing apparatus soon sends Janga to the ground as she struggles to draw the oxygen she needs. While Peter rushes to her aid, Yondu and Kraglin take up the fight between them, a whirlwind of punches, kicks and knives until Nebula is able to grab a blaster from the ground where Janga dropped it and twist things to her advantage.

 

Kraglin might have the height advantage, but Nebula is clearly the stronger as she grabs him from behind, a nerve grip collapsing his legs beneath him. She holds the blaster to his head, eyes fixed on Yondu as his arrow flies back into his hand.

 

“Guess you made your choice.” Nebula spits, turning the blaster from Kraglin’s head to Yondu. “So be it.”

 

Yondu looks at Kraglin, who in turn looks at him. And the Xandarian smiles. It’s not a happy smile. It’s not even a sad smile. It’s just a gesture. An acknowledgement.

 

It is goodbye.

 

Kraglin gets his feet back beneath him, shifts his centre of gravity, and kicks himself off the ground. Both he and Nebula are sent flying backwards, shattering the glass of the window behind them.

 

Yondu runs forward, ignoring the shouts from both Peter and Janga as he climbs through the sharp remnants of the glass, perching himself on what ledge is provided the other side.

 

Nothing. Nothing but harsh waves and jagged rocks and no safe way to climb down or even unsafe way to climb down. Just a sheer drop to…

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My cliffhanger has a cliff. Yay!


	7. I guess there is no one to blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What does Kra’gar’lan mean?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, seeing as I had one reviewer threatening to strangle me, another reviewer offering me pizza, and another chapter that was sort of drafted, and the day off work, I decided to finish up and upload :-)
> 
> I hope that this has earned me a stay of execution / pizza :-)

Ravagers never held funerals, but they still mourned. The chaos of the canteen had subdued to a companionable silence as everyone ate their meals. Evenings were spent in huddled groups, talking and swapping stories. And if a few shed tears then nothing was said, only an arm around shoulders, and maybe a few tears returned.

 

“Gonna sound weird, but part of me wishes Kraglin was here to see this.” Peter muttered, eyes fixed on the view through the observation window. They were still on the planet. No one had the heart to leave, especially Yondu.

 

“It is a nice view.” Yondu said, nodding.

 

“I mean...I mean seeing how the crew’s hurting. I think it would have put a lot of his demons to rest. I...I think it would have put all of them to rest.” Peter drew his knees into his chest. “I am such an idiot.”

 

“We all know that, Boy.” Yondu says, giving him a tooth filled smile. It falters when Peter doesn’t return it.

 

“Just before...just before it all went down. When we were sat there waiting for Nebula to come back, Kraglin kinda tore me a new one over...well everything the last few days.”

 

Yondu turned so that he was sat with his back to the view, his eyes fixed on Peter.

 

“I thought...when I was still...I thought it was all a dream. That I was still there and I had just finally managed to escape into my dreams entirely. Because that was what I tried to do. Thanos…Thanos tore me apart.” He stops, taking a deep breath to compose himself. “I could see it, atom by atom, and I could hear my bones breaking and my skin shredding. Me screaming. I didn’t want to scream…”

 

“I’d have screamed too, boy.”

 

“I needed to block it out. I wasn’t strong enough to handle it, so I shut it out. Stopped seeing it. Stopped hearing it. Dreamed instead. I could still feel it though, when he pulled me back together and I thought nothing could have been worse than that. Then he let his men…” He turns to look out of the window again. “He let his men rape me.”

 

“Quill…”

 

“It was alright when I thought...I thought I was just dreaming and...it was only...but it was never a dream was it. I was here and it was real and all that NEEDINESS. They had to, Yondu you even had to wash me. And leading me around all the time, holding me when I cried. I cried in front of you, in front of Kraglin, in front of everyone. Everyone had to help me.” His voice gets progressively louder until he is shouting. “And the worst part is, I liked it. I enjoyed being taken care of. Being loved and waited on. Being pathetic. Stupid, useless Quill who can’t even sleep unless someone is sat by his bed stroking his hair like he’s a little kid.”

 

“You think it’s weak to need help, Boy.” Yondu says. “To need support. To need to heal..”

 

“I’m supposed to be a Guardian of the Galaxy, Yondu. I couldn’t even guard myself. I didn’t fight them. I let them...I LET HIM...over and over and…”

 

“And if you had fought back you would be dead.” Yondu’s own voice is rising. “We are survivors, Boy. And sometimes surviving means fighting back, and sometimes it means submitting while you wait for rescue. You survived, Peter.”

 

Peter looks up at the sound of his first name. He can’t remember another time when Yondu has used it.

 

“I wish I hadn’t.” He whispers.

 

“Why?”

 

“I’m powerless now.”

 

“You’re not powerless, boy.” Yondu lowers his voice again. “Needing help doesn’t make you weak. We Ravagers are strong, Peter, but not ‘cause we can fight our own battles. That ain’t strength, that’s being alone. We’re strong because we’re a crew. Might even say some twisted version of a family. And our strength is that we’ve got each others backs. We take care of each other, everyone. Especially the ones that are hurting bad. Whatever they need.

 

“That’s why I got pissed at you for taking that orb. You betrayed that family.”

 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Quill looks up, making eye contact with the Captain for the first time since they had both entered the room. “I just wanted to prove myself.”

 

“You proved yourself, Peter. But it weren’t by stealing that orb. It was the moment you grabbed Gamora’s hand that battle on Xandar.” Yondu smiles again. “It was the moment you let yourself be part of something. Let the team make you stronger.”

 

The Centaurian reaches out. “You going to take my hand now, Boy?”

 

Peter stared at the hand for so long that Yondu nearly pulls away, then...his own hand shaking...her reaches out, clasping it weakly. The shaking takes up his whole body, and suddenly he’s in pieces.

 

Because this is reality now.

 

“Easy, Boy. That’s it.” He’s pulled into a standing hug, holding him tight until the tears have dried and Peter’s breathing calmer, steadier.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Not your fault, Boy.”

 

“It is though, isn’t it.” Peter steps backwards in the embrace. “If I hadn’t been so stubborn, you wouldn’t have come here to find Janga, and Nebula wouldn’t have...Kraglin wouldn’t be…” Peter looks down. “He said things Yondu. Really horrible things, and they couldn’t possibly be true but he believed in them so strongly. He died believing them. Ravagers help the ones that are hurting bad, but no one helped him.”

 

“It’s not your fault, Boy.” Yondu repeats, pulling Peter back into the hug. “It’s mine.”

 

* * *

 

Doc would be the first the admit that he had a few small flaws to his character. For a start, he was overly kind and helpful, and while that might not have been a character flaw in civilised society, having been raised by Ravagers meant this his kindness made Doc the exception that proved the rule on Nature vs Nurture.

 

Second was that once Doc got an idea into his head, he never gave up on it. Even when Yondu and Peter both told him that Kraglin had fallen from a height into razor sharp rocks, even when days passed without sight or sound of the First Mate, Doc still could not get past the small but he felt rather important fact that dead people tended to leave bodies behind.

 

The first few days, the Krylorian had ‘suggested’ that the settlements coast guards might do a few routine patrols, while making a point of checking the magazine on his pistol (he was a kind ravenger, but he was still a Ravager). By day three Yondu had joined his efforts, the Captain inspired by the young medics optimism, and also not willing himself to believe that Kraglin was dead either.

 

Not willing to give up on him the way so many others had.

 

By day four, Peter had joined the search.

 

By day five, Doc’s optimism was waning, and Yondu had to talk him around.

 

By day six, Doc was talking Yondu around.

 

Unidentified patients in hospitals. Bodies in morgues. They had even investigated a raving lunatic trying to convince a remote fishing village that the end of the world was nigh. That had turned out to just be a raving lunatic trying to convince a remote fishing village that the end of the world was nigh.

 

And Peter would have paid all the units he had to know what had run through that lunatics head when Yondu had walked up to him and grabbed him in a bear hug that lifted the Badoon off the ground.

 

With Yondu’s hand on one shoulder, and Peter’s on the other, Doc took the lead, speaking to the village medicine woman, a Centaurian woman with a mowhawk that probably made her ancestors proud, and listening as she explained how the fishing boats had happened to see someone washed up on the rocky islands that frequented the coast. And lucky they had, for by the time he had reached the medicine woman he had been but minutes from death. “May even have gone there. Maybe seen the world beyond. But we pulled him back. Not his time yet. Too young.” She whistled. “Too young yet. Medicines and magic working for him. That and strength. Come see. Come see.”

 

The room that the three Ravagers were lead into was small, but oddly inviting. The walls were lined with paintings, and every surface had a potted plant. There was even a young Flora Colossus in the corner that waved and greeted the trio as they entered the room. Peter waved back.

 

The medicine woman pulled back a curtain that had, until then, been concealing the other corner of the room. It was Yondu who recovered first, taking a step forward into the alcove.

 

“Herbs to fix bones.” The medicine woman explains, holding up a bag. “And this is cream for harm to his skin. Not all from the fall. Some wounds recent, but older” She holds out his arm, and Yondu gave her a terse nod, feeling sick, violent, angry.

 

He wants to take the knife that Kraglin used, and cut himself with it.

 

“Thank you.” He holds his forehead against his fellow Centaurian’s before sitting in the offered chair beside the bed, Peter and Doc stand behind him. Kraglin is laid on his side in front of them. Fast asleep, covered in bruises and cuts...not all of them from the fall.

 

Alive.

 

“Kra’gar’lan.” Yondu whispers, resting a hand on the Xandarian’s forehead. “Time to wake up Kra’gar’lan. We’ve found you.”

 

Peter and Doc exchange a glance, neither of them recognising the name. The medicine woman does though.

 

“Ooh, a Zatoan speaker.”

 

“My mother tongue.” Yondu explains.

 

“Not many Centaurian that speak Zatoan now.” The medicine woman turns to Peter and Doc. “Zatoan is a contextual language, so translators don’t work. Not even the best software. Easier to speak common tongues with other races, so younglings learn that instead. Zatoan is dying out.”

 

“What does Kra’gar’lan mean?” Doc asks.

 

“It’s his name.” Yondu speaks with a low voice. “His proper name. One I gave him when he was a youngling.”

 

The medicine woman seems touched by this, but says nothing further. When, not long afterwards, the still recovering Peter begins to tire, she takes him and Doc to another room to sleep.

 

Yondu stays in the chair, his hand on his First Mate’s forehead.

 

“Remember when we first met, Kra’gar’lan?”

 

 


	8. Ooh Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin wonders how soon it will be before he can throw himself off of another cliff.

He is twelve years old, and has been a slave for over half his life. He thinks his name is Runt, but only because that is all that anyone ever calls him. He can't remember ever having another name.

 

His stomach tightens painfully as he works. His master cut and run on their last job, and now food is scarce. There isn't enough to feed him properly, and he hasn't eaten at all since yesterday. But the engines still need cleaning and oiling, and the floor needs to be scrubbed as well. He needs to do a good job, maybe they will let him eat if he does.

 

When the ship shakes, he is thrown into the wall. The bucket tips to its side, sending water and suds across the corridor. An alarm sounds and he can hear shouting. The ship shakes again, and he feels the sickening pull of a planets gravity hitting him. They are landing.

 

A thud sends the engines offline, and he hears explosions in the distance. More shouting. Weapons fire. He climbs into a ventilation shaft, getting right back against the grating and hoping that the shadows will be enough as he pulls his knees against his chest and buries his face in them, jolting at every explosion. Every pulse blast. Every shout.

 

The silence that follows seems almost as loud as the noise it replaces. He can feel his heart hammering against his chest as he slowly crawls out into the corridor, standing. He creeps through the engine room into the corridor, looking up and down. He sees a corpse, recognises it as one of his master's men, covered in blood and burns, eyes open and staring right at him.

 

Runt screams, then covers his mouth with his hands. Too late. He flinches as his own voice echoes throughout the corridor, and in the distance he hears raised voices. He's grabbed from behind, raised off the ground. He kicks and screams, but he's weak from hunger and fatigue, no match for the fully grown man holding him up. Blue skinned, razor sharp teeth and red eyes.

 

He waits until the boy stops struggling, his little energy spent, then puts him on the ground.

 

"Well, well. What have we here?" The alien says, kneeling and taking hold of Runt's hands as if inspecting them. Of course, if his master is dead, and this is the alien that killed him, then that makes the blue skinned one his master now.

 

He knows that he is trembling, but trying to stop just makes him shake harder as the hands move to his wrists, probing the tiny tattoo marking there.

 

"You property, boy?" The voice is angry.

 

Runt nods, his trembling increasing ten fold, because his new master is angry. He's knows why. He's scrawny, small for his age. He tires easily. He gets sick often. He's a bad slave. He's nothing but a Runt. And if this new master had any sense he would shoot him and be done with it. He'll cost more to feed than he'll earn in a sale.

 

"You got a name?" The voice is still angry.

 

He looks to the floor.

 

"Asked you a question?"

 

"I...they...he calls me Runt." He screws his eyes shut. "I'm Runt."

 

"Runt, huh." The anger only increases as the man stands, and the boy tenses, waiting for a blow. A kick. A pulse blast. Instead, he feels his new master pick him up so that he is sat in his arms, his own arms wrapped around the aliens neck.

 

"You like Kra'gar'lan." The alien says as he steps over the corpse, and strides up the corridor.

 

"Kra'." The boy shakes his head, confused. "Kraglin?"

 

His new master laughs. "Ah, Kraglin's close enough. You'll need a surname too, so be thinking of one."

 

Runt...no, Kraglin, he has a name now, feels his trembling fade. He can tell that this new master is going to be kind. There is something protective in the way that he is holding him, and he has even given him a name.

 

He thinks he might feel happy.

 

* * *

 

"You're looking pretty good for a dead guy."

 

It takes a moment for Kraglin's eyes to focus on Peter, sat in a chair at the foot of the bed with his feet propped up on the mattress. He doesn't...no...wait...he does sort of recognise the room. There was a woman with a mohawk and a dancing tree.

 

He pushes himself up to a sitting position, then immediately regrets it when every single muscle stages a protest. He's pretty much stuck there until Peter helps him to settle back.

 

"Yeah, I wouldn't try anything more strenuous than blinking for a couple of days, if I were you." He drags the chair closer with his foot, and sits back on it. "Or at least wait until you're on Yondu's watch. He's not likely to put a kill bounty out on himself."

 

"Watch?"

 

"Yeah. We have a rota drawn up and everything. Well, Doc drew up the rota. Kept his mind off of thinking up 'what if' scenarios, which in turn kept Yondu's mind off of considering 'what if' scenarios, which meant that I didn't get driven nuts by a Captain in worried mode so yay for the rota." He gave Kraglin a thumbs up.

 

"Are you high?"

 

"I'm excited man. You've been out of it for three days. And that was after we found you, so add another six or seven days on that. And like, how are you all in one piece? You fell off a cliff!"

 

Oh yeah, now he remembers.

 

He closes his eyes. "Everyone get out okay?"

 

"Janga was a bit funny on her feet for a couple of hours but she's fine now. In fact, I'm meeting her tomorrow. I'm in therapy."

 

Kraglin opens one eye. "What kind of therapy?"

 

Peter taps his temple. "She said she was happy to help you as well, once you're feeling up to it."

 

Looking in the direction that Peter points, Kraglin notices that he is shirtless, and his arms are on full display. "Oh."

 

"Yeah."

 

"Yondu?"

 

"Pretty angry."

 

"Shit." Kraglin lifts his hands with the aim to bury his face in them, but a stab of pain quickly puts that idea on the back burner next to sitting up, doing star jumps and taking a deep breath. As it is, even shallow breathing is slowly becoming an issue. A lump has formed in his throat. "Shit."

 

"So, do you want to talk about it?"

 

"No."

 

"Not even to Yondu?"

 

He opens his eyes. "You said he was angry."

 

"Well I kinda also told him about what you said, you know to me and to Nebula. Now, in my defence, I thought you were dead at the time. Whole crew did. He didn't take what I told him very well."

 

"He picked a new First Mate yet?"

 

"God, Kraglin! Have you been listening to me. No one has mentioned First Mate or Last Mate or any Mate. We thought you were dead and the ship was a mess. The crew that apparently doesn't give a damn about you was in pieces. You even got tears out of Lupe, which rusted his bionic eye so you might want to stay away from him for a few days. Don't you get it? People care! You were just so busy believing that they didn't that you couldn't see it. And...well maybe that's on us too. The whole crew feels like we let you down..." He gently taps Kraglin on the arm. "...and we all want to make it up to you, now we got the chance to."

 

"This..." He lifts his arm. "...isn't the crews fault."

 

"Well enjoy the love anyway, Obfonteri, because they got all your favourite foods in. Fixed up your room so it's like this weird gym...Doc said it's for rehabilitation. They've even been building this chair with wheels on it to help you move about the ship, and I am totally test driving that for you by the way because it looks cool."

 

Kraglin is starting to suspect that the lump in his throat might be a swallowed rock.

 

"And Yondu's been here the whole time, and before you ask yes we have to drug him to get him to sleep. By we I mean the crazy medicine woman who you called Mum last night."

 

"Ooh. He's awake again, is he?"

 

"Oh look. Mum's here." Peter smiled in return to Kraglin's 'you're lucky I can't move right now' glare. "I'll get Yondu."

 

"Yes, wake him, bring him in. I have food for you, Xandarian."

 

"Um...thanks." He mutters, trying not to grimace too much at the strange collection of...it might be fruit...that the medicine woman is holding on a plate.

 

"It's really good." Peter mouths behind her head, giving Kraglin a thumbs up before stepping out of the room.

 

"Have you been drugging Quill?"

 

The medicine woman laughs fondly as she sets the tray on the table beside the bed. "Enjoy it."

 

"Um..." Kraglin is barely able to start speaking before she's out of the room. "I can't actually reach it." He grits his teeth and tries to move his arm, gods does he try, but no. He can barely get it to move an inch before his lungs are straining with the effort. He throws what was left of his pride to the wind, and shouts. "Help!"

 

It is Yondu who steps into the room, and Kraglin must have let his fear at that prospect show, because the Captain immediately points back over his shoulder. "I can go and get Mum if you prefer."

 

"Can we please not call her Mum." He grimaces as Yondu gently pulls him up into a half sitting position against his pillows.

 

"You started it, son." Yondu says as he sits down, and picks the cutlery up off the tray. "You called me Dad too."

 

Kraglin wonders how soon it will be before he can throw himself off of another cliff. His mortification is complete when Yondu picks up a piece of the fruit with the cutlery and holds it up to the First Mate's mouth. "Open up."

 

"Not until you take a vow of silence on this."

 

Yondu crosses his heart with his free hand, and Kraglin takes the fruit. It actually is quite nice, and he is quicker in accepting a second bite.

 

"Quill's looking better." Kraglin says while Yondu is preparing the next portion.

 

"Thanks to you. Wouldn't have gotten through the last few weeks without you helping me. Was you as much as me that pulled the boy out of that living hell he was in."

 

"I was just..."

 

"Don't say it Kraglin. You've been invaluable. No arguments. And I'm not just saying it because you were dead last week."

 

Kraglin contemplates this as he takes another bite. It proves to be a particularly sweet portion, and he can't help but smile a little bit.

 

Yondu chuckles. "You always did appreciate food. Remember when you was a youngling? Your first night on the ship we put you in the canteen and told you to eat as much as you wanted. You couldn't move by the end of it. You curled up asleep under the table."

 

"I remember that." Kraglin says around the food in his mouth. "Guess I didn't make the best first impression huh."

 

"Didn't stop you becoming First Mate four years later."

 

"Why'd you pick me?" Kraglin asks. "When Horuz said he wanted to stand down, why not wait and pick Quill?"

 

"He was eight years old, Kraglin."

 

"You could have got Horuz to wait a while, or assigned it as a temporary position. You didn't. You resorted to me. A slave..."

 

"Thought I told you to never call yourself that."

 

"I'm the slave you won in a ship raid, Captain." Kraglin looks away, focusing on the wall beside his bed. "Quill is your son, as good as."

 

"Not how it works." Yondu sighs and puts the cutlery down. “Day Peter came to us, he’d just lost his mother and whole planet. He needed a parent figure. That was what he was familiar with, what he relied upon. He found comfort in having that close bond with someone. Without it he’d have fallen apart, gone off the rails. But you'd only ever known other people as masters. So yes, with you I kept my distance. I was the figure of authority, and you knew the rules, and you were comfortable with that structure. And I watched as you raised yourself up and left your old life far behind in hardly any time at all. Might only have been sixteen but you we're ready. So I chose you." He rests a hand on the Xandarian's chest, over his heart. "I chose you because I could see your potential.

 

"I got it wrong though." He leans forward, lowering his voice. "I thought you needed me to be a Captain, a leader. But you needed me to be family, a father or brother. You needed that maybe even more so than Quill did growing up. I wronged you and I’m sorry."

 

Kraglin shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak. He squeezes his eyes shut as Yondu wraps an arm around his shoulders, drawing their heads together.

 

"You're going to be a mighty fine captain for that ship of ours one day. Next time you get an urge to cut, I want you to promise me that you’ll think about that.” Yondu pauses, sitting back and letting what he says sink in before he continues. “And promise that you’ll find me, don’t care what I’m doing or what time it is. You get an urge to do this again..." He gently taps Kraglin's arm. "...then you’re the priority over anything and anyone else. Even Quill. I don’t want it to take a psychic to make me realise the next time you’re in trouble. Promise.”

 

Kraglin nods.

 

"And never apologise. This ain't your fault, none of it."

 

He chuckles quietly as the younger man yawns, and carefully helps him back into the bed.

 

As he falls asleep, he feels the gentle weight of the hand against his head, a thumb gently stroking his forehead. His eyes slip shut, but not before he sees Peter poking his head around the curtain hiding him from the rest of the room.

 

The Terran winks, and he smiles back.

 

It's going to take time, but they're going to be okay. Both of them.


	9. Things are Going to Get Easier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Doors still going to be open for you to come back though, Quill, anytime you need it to be"

TWO MONTHS LATER

 

"Right. All done." Peter steps onto the bridge. "Drop me off at the rendezvous. Guardians will meet me there within the day."

 

"You sure that's what you want, Boy." Yondu twirls the Yaka Arrow between his hands.

 

"Well I kinda left my Walkman on the Milano and I miss it. You have no idea how much I miss it."

 

"Got some idea." Yondu looks up from his arrow contemplation. "It's up to you. You're an adult, and no one on this ship's a prisoner. Doors still going to be open for you to come back though, Quill, anytime you need it to be."

 

"I'll remember that." Peter smiles, and steps back out into the corridor. "Thank you. I mean, for everything."

 

“Peter?”

 

He stops, turning around slowly.

 

“You better not be stealing anything from me, Boy?” Yondu says, pointing the arrow at the Terran.

 

Laughing, Peter lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender, and walks away.

 

-

 

Yondu would never admit to being capable of emotions like sorrow, but he supposed that was what he is feeling as he sits alone in the quarters nursing a decanter, a glass, and his thoughts considering the Terran phrase “empty nest syndrome”.

 

The gentle, hesitant knock is amplified by the silence of the room.

 

"Please be a mutiny." Yondu mutters as he stands, crossing the room and opening to door.

 

Kraglin is standing, or rather leaning against the wall, outside. He focuses his gaze on Yondu’s shoes.

 

The Captain crosses his arms. "Did you walk here?"

 

"Chair makes a noise. I didn't want to wake the crew."

 

Yondu looks at his time piece. It's so late it's early the next day. "You need to come in?"

 

Kraglin nods, falling into the Captain as soon as his arms open wide, and letting him as good as carry him to the table.

 

"Need to talk?"

 

Kraglin shakes his head as he sits down.

 

"Just want someone watching you?"

 

He nods.

 

“I can do that." He fetches another glass, then thinks better of it and puts the decanter away.

 

"Got something for you." Yondu goes to his bunk, sorting through the box stored beneath it.

 

"What is it?"

 

"It's a book, Kraglin. Please tell me you've seen a book before." Yondu places the book on the table, and slides it over. "That medicine lady on Janga's planet said you’d been asking her about Zatoan.”

 

“She said it was a dying language.” He mutters, slowly. “I...I don’t like it when people give up on things.”

 

“Yeah, well that book’ll teach you all you need to know.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Don’t thank me yet. It’s not an easy language to learn.”

 

“You managed.”

 

Yondu decides that Kraglin is still to early in his recovery to punch, and so settles for gently flicking at his ear before moving round to sit at the other side of the table. He sits there with his hands folded, watching the First Mate out of the corner of his eye as he searches the index, then flicks through to the middle of the book.

 

“That which we cherish and will protect at all costs.” The Xandarian reads. “Used with outsiders to refer to the homeworld or colony of origin. Among tribes will refer to the tribal home or a homestead within it. Among family members may be heard used to refer to a child, especially if that child has been adopted into the family.”

 

“You’re supposed to start at the beginning of the book.” Yondu says, quietly.

 

He turns to the front of the book, then looks up at the Captain. His eyes say enough.

 

Yondu turns to face him. “Go on then, say hello to me.”

 

-

 

“Ah, finally decided to show up then.”

 

“Good to see you too, Rocket.” Peter says, leaving his duffle bag on the galley table.

 

“It pleases me to see you healthy and well, Quill.” Drax says. “We took great effort to restore the Milano to how she was before you left.”

 

“Exactly how much effort did that...oomph.” Peter startles as Drax literally lifts him off the floor on a bone crushing embrace. “Hey Drax...okay...breathing an issue here.”

 

“I apologise.”

 

“No worries.” Peter wheezes as he gets his breath back, patting Drax on the side of his arm before looking past him to the figure sat at the table. “Groot? Wow! Look at you all fully grown.”

 

“I am Groot.”

 

Footsteps alert him to the final member of their team, stood behind him, leaning against the door. He turns slowly, and there she is. All Asgardian Princess and Celestial, just as he remembered her.

 

“Gamora.” He says, giving her a nod of acknowledgement.

 

She replies by pulling him into an embrace that Peter thinks has the potential to be almost as bone breaking as the one Drax subjected him to.

 

“Yeah, I’m back.” He says, smiling. “Miss me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. 
> 
> Huge thank you to everyone who commented, left Kudos and bookmarked this. You all rock like Rocket :-) *Hugs all round*


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